The Arrival of Louis XIV at the Camp before Maastricht, June 1673

In June 1673 Louis XIV was at war with the Dutch Republic, and Maastricht, a fortress city on the river Meuse, fell to him after a siege of 13 days. Unlike some battles in his painted history, this one he really did direct in person, while the military engineer Vauban laid out the siege works. Van der Meulen went to see the place for himself, and the city on the horizon is drawn with care, the ramparts and, near the centre, the great basilica of Saint Servatius.

The canvas came more than a decade later. It was ordered for the antechamber of the king's apartment at Marly, the smaller château he used as a retreat from Versailles, and its frame was delivered in 1687, which tells us when it went up. Louis is easy to find on his white horse in the middle distance. By 1750 the picture was in poor shape, and the restorer who treated it wrote that it had been burnt and was coming away in flakes.